


Scientific Debate

by lunarpaddle



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, ITS IN CHARACTER, Volume 8 (RWBY), but i thought it was gonna go a different way so i wrote it, but then ruby would probably get carried away with that too so, got the idea for this after watching the episode, i might have gotten a bit carried away with the weapons technology metaphor though, the way this interaction went wasnt...bad, v8e2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarpaddle/pseuds/lunarpaddle
Summary: “I was the Protector of Mantle,” she says, “But now, I ammuchmore than that. And I wish I was not.”She looks up to meet Ruby’s eyes, and they’re glistening with tears – something catches inside of her, a gear or a wire or –Or none of those things. She doubts this is a technical error.“Penny,” Ruby says, voice thick, “you werealwaysmore than that. Always.”---If a certain conversation in Volume 8 Episode 2 had gone a bit differently.
Relationships: Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose
Comments: 5
Kudos: 68





	Scientific Debate

“I do not like it when friends fight,” she says, turning back to the console. Weiss is trying to find the right tube, but Penny thinks it might take a while.

She could probably work that out herself – she had access to a full scan of almost all infrastructure in Mantle and Atlas – but she did not particularly feel like it. She had not particularly felt like much, in the last few hours.

It seemed strange, that such power would make her feel less, till she actually thought about it properly. She was the Winter Maiden now, ice and snow and frost – of course she felt numb.

“I know, Yang and I might not agree on how best to save Mantle, but –“

“No,” Penny interrupts Ruby – her voice is soft, quiet, but Ruby stops straight away anyway. That’s one of the things she’s always liked about Ruby – despite her high levels of energy and almost unstoppable boisterousness, she still managed to be so… respectful.

“I mean Winter. The General. They were our _friends_. But then the Ace-Ops attacked you, and The General –“ her voice catches in her throat, but she recovers quickly – one of the benefits of having internal speakers, rather than an actual throat. “He said people were going to _die_. Because of _me_.”

She tries to turn away, but she immediately feels Ruby’s hands on her – she perhaps thought too hastily of Ruby being ever-respectful – and is pulled around to face her friend.

“That was a lie,” Ruby says, “And he was only saying it to hurt you.”

The thought of that hurts her. The idea that The General would deliberately aim to hurt her, that his goals would ever be so cruel – 

(She thinks of Oscar when they found him. He wouldn’t elaborate on what happened, but Penny hadn’t needed him to – her father had never been quite able to recreate the exact sensation of smell, but he had been able to give her a way of analysing the chemicals in the air that was in many ways far more refined. The dust residue on his chest was obvious – she could not guarantee with 100% accuracy its source, but she knew The General’s weapon used a similar dust profile, and she knew that Oscar had gone to confront him, and – )

“I was the Protector of Mantle,” she says, “But now, I am _much_ more than that. And I wish I was not.”

She looks up to meet Ruby’s eyes, and they’re glistening with tears – something catches inside of her, a gear or a wire or – 

Or none of those things. She doubts this is a technical error.

“Penny,” Ruby says, voice thick, “you were _always_ more than just that. Always.”

She reaches up with her hands, trying to – to push Ruby away, to get herself just that bit of space so she can think, so she can remind herself of things, but when she takes a hold of Ruby’s hands Ruby just holds on back, letting both their arms fall to hang between them.

She’s reminded of running away, and accidents on the road, and scraped palms.

“I appreciate your kindness, Ruby, but it is what I was built for – it is why I exist. It – it should have been all that I ever was.”

Ruby’s eyes are hard, in that unwavering, steely way they always get before a battle or a speech. She suspects she is in for the latter. She holds Penny’s gaze, takes a breath, and speaks.

“I was always into weapons stuff, y’know? I mean, I figure you might have guessed from, well, me, but I don’t talk about it so much anymore. Not like I used to.” She pulls her hands up, looks down at them, and she thinks it must be deliberate, that she must be thinking of that moment too.

“But back when I was in school it was all I would talk about. It drove the other kids up the wall, I swear, and this was at Signal – their whole thing was training people for Beacon!”

“I’m sure I would have quite liked to hear it,” she says, feeling a smile flutter onto her face and wondering how Ruby can bring her warmth even when the incarnation of cold itself made its home in her chest. 

Ruby smiles and gives her hands a squeeze. Right. Like that.

“There was this one kid who did. We’d have these huge arguments about stuff, we’d go on for hours – we disagreed on basically everything, but at least he’d talk to me about it, right? And one of the big things we argued about was the ‘Future of Weaponry’ – there was a lot of stuff in magazines about that kinda thing, and my dad was always going on about it, so.” She takes a breath again, glancing up to the ceiling as if to collect her thoughts.

“He was convinced that it was the new robots and mechs and stuff that Atlas was rolling out. He’d go on about how one day we wouldn’t need hunters at all, that there’d just be robots and mech pilots – who needs super talented fighters when you have weapons that’ll do the fighting for you, right?”

“Like me – “ Penny says, but it’s Ruby’s turn to interrupt her this time, as if she knew what Penny was going to say before she even said it.

“No, Penny, that’s the point, it’s – okay, so, this is one of the big debates in weapon’s tech right? There’s one school of thought that’s like that, make weapons that’ll do the fighting for you, but they usually kinda suck? I mean, there’s obvious flaws, stuff like what happened in Vale, but they’re also just not super good. You see weapons like it on a smaller scale sometimes, right? People who try to make their guns auto-aim, or build some overcomplicated system in for complicated dust stuff, or just – just trying to make their weapons do the hard work for them.”

Penny does know what Ruby is referring to, actually – she fought against many students at Atlas who thought their complicated new weapon would be the thing to take her down.

It never was.

“They never do well,” Ruby says, echoing her thoughts. “My dad always loved complaining to me about those students, before going into a whole rant about the other school of thought. ‘The best weapons are simple’ was his whole, like, thing – and not simple like, easy to make or easy to use, simple like conceptually simple. My weapon has all kinds of really cool complicated stuff going on inside, but in the end of the day all that stuff mostly goes towards just… making the concept work properly. And the concept is just, a scythe that’s also a sniper rifle.”

She reaches behind her with one arm and takes Crescent Rose from her back, twirling it a little as it extends outwards, leaving a slight score in the ceiling. Weiss looks over and gives her a dirty look before going back to work.

“Yang’s weapons are just gauntlets that are also shotguns, Blake’s is just, what, a gunsword on a ribbon? Weiss’s seems more complicated, but it’s actually her semblance doing most of the work – really, her weapon’s just a sword that can hold dust.” Ruby leaves her scythe dug into the ground, reaching over to take her hand again.

“Weapons need to be simple like that because the real weapon is us – the best hunters fight like their weapon is an extension of themselves. Pyrrha –“ Ruby’s breath hitches a little before she continues, “Pyrrha’s weapon was ridiculously simple, it barely involved any actual tech at all, but because of her semblance it practically was a part of her, and she was so skilled with it she could take any of us easily. Except you.”

Penny tried to tear her eyes away from Ruby’s, but she couldn’t. Why would Ruby want to remind her of that night?

“I don’t know what Pietro was thinking when he was making you, but I can take a really good guess – he was thinking about how the best weapons are an extension of the hunter wielding them. You – you’re practically the ideal of that school of thought, Penny – your weapon literally is your body, and you’re in perfect harmony with it. Your weapon isn’t like a part of you, it is a part of you – sure, your body might have been made to be the perfect weapon, totally in harmony with the person wielding it, but you’re not – you’re the person that was picked to wield it.”

“I do not see how this matters, Ruby,” she says, and she’s speaking without thinking in a way that is unusual for her. “My body was built to be the perfect weapon, yes, but I was still created and raised to be the perfect wielder. The Protector of Mantle.”

“Yeah, and that was _wrong_!” Ruby exclaims. Penny is fairly sure that everyone in the room is listening in on their conversation at this point, but they are at least politely pretending otherwise.

“You – you don’t get to tell someone what they’re for! It’s – it was wrong when Jacques did it to Weiss, and it was wrong when Adam did it to Blake, and it was wrong when Oz did it to, to Pyrrha – nobody gets to tell someone what they’re for, or who they are.” Ruby pulls one of her hands up, moving it to rest on Penny’s cheek, Ruby’s own hand over it.

“You – not your body, not your weapon, _you_ – you’re not for anything. Yeah, you’re the Protector of Mantle, and you’re the Winter Maiden now as well, but you’re – you’re so much more than that, too. You’re Penny Polendina, and the only person who gets to decide who that is is you!”

The frost creeps through her chest, dancing along wires and sliding down panels, till she can feel it in her breath – she thinks she understands now, in a way she didn’t before, the saying ‘like a breath of fresh air’. She closes her eyes, and really lets herself feel it for the first time – the way it makes every sensation feel sharper, like the crispness of a winter morning, the clarity of ice and the bright light bouncing off the snow. She thinks about Penny Polendina, and who that is, and who she wants it to be, and she opens her eyes and – 

“Wow,” Ruby says, and she’s blushing – something that’s clearly visible in the blue light cascading over her skin. “That’s – that’s your maiden powers doing that, right? It’s – I mean, just – wow, you know?”

“I do,” Penny says, letting a sorely missed grin slide onto her face. She remembers seeing Ruby’s eyes light up during training once, just for a second – she knows. “Thank you, Ruby. Your words mean a lot to me. They always do.” Ruby smiles just as wide as her, and pulls her into a tight hug.

“I’ve found the right tube,” Weiss says, standing back up.

“She found the right tube a while ago,” Nora says, “she just didn’t want to inter-“

Weiss clamps a hand over Nora’s mouth, to which Nora responds with a full lick that has Weiss recoiling and searching her uniform for wipes.

“Alright! Shall we, uh, get going then?” Ruby says, voice pitched higher than usual. Penny smiles and walks over to the tubes.

“Let’s go save Mantle.”

**Author's Note:**

> Am I writing fic for a rarepair from a show that isn't one of my main fandoms at all instead of updating one of my many other fics? Yes, absolutely, and it's completely worth it, Nuts and Dolts is great and doesn't get nearly enough attention


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